Plays with words

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

It’s that time of the year again.As of June 3rd, I’ll be a year older.Why am I mentioning that?Because, this year I’ll be 30.That’s right, I successfully survived three
whole decades.In your face,
haters!

Someone asked me how I’ve enjoyed the last decade and I
didn’t have a response ready.That
bothered me, and when I went home I couldn’t get that question out of my head-
it started to haunt me.Did I have fun?Would I do it again?I set out on a mission to figure that out,
and started by gathering some evidence.So here it is, the list of what I’ve done with myself for the last ten
years.

I’ve written about 30 stories, turned 6 into novels and
published them (technically 7 but I unpublished my first shortly after I put it
up, like someone would see it and know I dared to share it.)I did the covers for most of them when I had
the time, then hired Miss H. C. Fang when I didn’t.Through my writing I’ve met 3 of my closest friends.

I left the country for the first time, taking a plane by my
lonesome to join one of those friends in Cancun, and we had enough fun that she
even invited me and my husband to join her in Jamaica the following year.Which we did.Yes, it was awesome even though he got drunk and walked into a
tree and I had an allergic reaction to a room full of steamed shrimp.Notice she didn’t have an embarrassing story
in there, lol

My longest friendship is approaching 22 years, and she and I
went on multiple excursions over the last 10.She brought me to my very first steampunk convention despite my kicking
and screaming, and apparently I liked it because we went again this year.We set another new tradition, where she and
I excuse ourselves, hand our children to our sulking husbands and ditch them
for a weekend to escape into New Hampshire’s wilderness every summer.This typically results in bad drunken poetry
and sunburns.

I’ve embarked on a few family vacations, going away with the
people I need to get away from, and have actually started to enjoy them on
occasion.My husband now understands
that when I say I want to be in nature, I really mean that I want to be close
to nature without actually being surrounded by it.

After six years of figuring out if we liked each other, my
husband and I officially got married under the cover of darkness.We picked the Friday following our decision
to do it, which oddly coincided with my brother and his husband’s
anniversary.Which is great because I
constantly forget which year we’re on and can just call my brother and ask him,
since he was married exactly one year before I was.To the hour.

I discovered in my early twenties that our oldest son, who
just barely missed being born in the last ten years (he turns eleven in july)
had ADHD that could contend with mine.I tried my hardest to help him and nothing seemed to work, possibly
because he learned that he could distract me quite easily.Many a homework date has been derailed
because he starts me on a topic that I’m interested in.Then when he was seven we decided to have
our second child, which turned out to be another boy, who is so sarcastic and
curmudgeony that I regret writing part of Duncan while I was pregnant with
him.He’s been like this from birth,
mind you, greeting me with a smile and immediately scowling at his father.

I’ve lost a lot of people in my life.Some died, some just stopped coming
around.In the last ten years I’ve lost
2 to the boneyard.Because one happened
to be my grandmother, who was incredibly close to my son, I had to explain to
my child that she was never coming back, but at least she had kicked this
life’s ass.That she was gone, but she
left as a blackbelt at being alive and that we should be proud to have known
her.Other family members immediately
fucked this up and made him a hysterical mess, because some of them are just…
terrible lol.

My oldest son had a bad reaction to medication that made him
suicidal when he was eight, and in order to wean him off of it as quickly as
possible he was institutionalized, so that they could supervise him and prevent
withdrawals.A lot of writers say that
they write to stay sane and I’m no different.He was in a children’s ward for eight weeks.I wrote an entire book in those eight weeks because I couldn’t
handle not seeing him around the house.Believe it or not, this was a blessing in disguise because if not for
his two month stay in a mental health facility, we never would’ve learned that
he had Aspergers syndrome.He only has
a hint of it, enough that it went unnoticed for eight years, during which he
was seeing people for his ADHD that were trained to look for it.Our relationship has been so much better
once we realized that, because it explained why my older boy will follow me
around like a miniature business analyst, explaining to me how I can be more
efficient while notifying me that I have laugh lines on my face.

My mother had two aneurisms in her brain and underwent brain
surgery to have them dealt with.I was
told by her family that the best thing I could do for her was go away, but it’s
a great thing that I didn’t because I ended up running her house while I cared
for her.The family that was telling me
I wouldn’t be able to take care of her only visited once, in a group, when she
still wasn’t ready to receive guests.She didn’t need too much help because I’m under the impression that my
mother might be a terminator, but with a much better complexion and a love for
children that doesn’t involve roasting them over a spit.I waited until exactly one month after her
surgery to make sure that she was going to be okay, then moved into our very
first house.

And this house is also just terrible.It suits our needs for now, but the person
who flipped it didn’t do a great job.The paint peeled off almost immediately after we purchased it, right
before the pipes all fell apart or started to spew rusty water.Also, fun discovery: there’s no insulation
in the walls.We live in New England.It snows a lot.That hasn’t stopped me from transforming it into what I wanted,
but it still sucks that we paid for a POS.A side note – I have had to evict three separate and remarkably
aggressive homeless men from my garage, which looks impressive and cruel on
anyone’s resume.

In the last ten years I have quit smoking twice only to go
right back to it, became addicted to coffee and permanently damaged my stomach
by drinking too much of it for too long, and have failed to stop biting my
nails.In short – I really suck at
having bad habits.Or maybe I’m really
great at it, because I have successfully demonstrated why they’re considered
bad habits, at the very least.

I have been caught on two separate occasions smoking outside
while dressed like batman, bat ears and everything, with goggles on over the
eyeholes.In my defense, I don’t smoke
in my house and it was below freezing, so my batman hoodie covered the parts of
my face not necessary for the intake of carcinogens.

Also, my husband was caught by the police for trying to
sneak to dunkin donuts in a(travel
ban) snowstorm, claimed that he was only out to get milk, and on his second
attempt to sneak over there was greeted by the same police officer, who had
purchased him some milk.I got to spend
that day making fun of him, reminding him that sneaking through a snowstorm
while being the darkest man on our street, wearing all black was unwise.It was like a very bad game of I spy, where
you find the OMFG black spot against the entirely white background.Furthermore, even if he’d made it there, the
dunkin donuts was only open for plows and police, who would immediately ask him
how the hell he got there anyway.Leave
it to my husband to be trying to thwart the nicest, most caring cop in our
state so that he could get coffee.<- I decided to include this entertaining story because I had offered
this son of a bitch some coffee, and he laughed, then replied, “I hate your
coffee.”I then proceeded to cackle as
I watched his quest crumble and fail.

All in all, I’ve learned some things about myself.Evidently, I rely on my twisted sense of
humor to function, I am attracted to a grumpy and simultaneously ridiculous
dork, and my kids could probably be rented out as weapons of mass destruction
because I really have no idea how to do this mom thing.I found out that I do need people, but that
there are some relationships that can only be labeled toxic, and sometimes the
right thing doesn’t feel right at all.I’ve met so many interesting and amazing people, just about adopted a
few of them as family, and have removed the venomous half of my blood family
from my life.

So going back to the question at the beginning of this,
would I do it again?Yes, I would.But I’d tell myself this:

There are many times where it feels like the world has
climbed up on your shoulders and the sheer weight of it makes every day hurt
more than the last.This is a fact of
life.But, it doesn’t last forever, it
just tries to outlast you.And that is
the only thing I can really say about my first thirty years of being alive:
it’s worth it, so be a stubborn ass and when you start to break to pieces,
don’t be ashamed to let somebody else help you shoulder the weight.And if that doesn’t work, write like a
mother fucker.

Happy birthday to me, and I guess to my dumb husband
too.He turns 30 a mere three days before
I do, the old bastard.Here’s to some
more decades.Cheers everyone;)

Currently
working on Duncan #2. No spoilers, so
that’s really all that I can say at this point. It exists with the original cast as it was at the end of part
2.

Depending
on the sales of my print edition of The Cat & the Crow, I might be doing a
print edition of Duncan as well. Would
love to know if anybody would even be interested in that, as the book is much
longer than the one I just formatted. I
find myself wondering if the amount of time it would take me would be
worthwhile.

I
have put some more work down on Playing with Tigers 3 and Swordmaster Dasan 3,
however these aren’t my top priority projects right now. I’m in the process of a heavy re-edit on the
original books for Playing with Tigers, and on the first Swordmaster
Dasan.

Someone
recently asked about a sequel to The Cat & the Crow. I do have a large portion of a sequel
written but I’m trying to take it one project at a time, so it’s on a back
burner for now. Tarro’s not done,
though. I left too many strings hanging
at the end of the first one to leave him alone, the poor guy.

Well, we survived the blizzard but there's another one on the way, so I will head off now to get work done just in case we lose power.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Well it’s been a fun month since my last blog post (or a
little over that, it seems?)

Everyone will hopefully be pleased to hear that I survived
October not only intact, but feeling better than I have in about a year.The main reason for this was the visit from
the extremely talented Nicole Castle, who flew out to stay with us, whooped my
ass at making blueberry pancakes, and got me out of my house often enough that
it didn’t seem so daunting to keep up with the habit.

We had a lot of fun.Filled a bathtub with blood, saw some witches up in Salem, visited
Battleship Cove and I introduced her to the best chowder in the U.S., she
rekindled my love for socks and showed me a song that I’m now constantly using
for Calvin.Oh, and she showed me a
much better way to make dirty Shirleys:D

On a side note, her visit coincided with a once in a
lifetime embarrassing situation for my husband, who made a bet with a friend,
lost, and had to wear a costume of his friend’s choice.This is him here, hating everybody with a smile on his face. :)

More than a few of my friends have notified him that he’s
been ‘added to the bank.’But, he did
score us some extra candy, and you’d better believe that Nicole and I made him
work it too – we had as much candy as the kids because housewives started to
throw it at him.Personally, I think
the choice of costume was kind because I would’ve chosen Harley Quinn for him
and Nicole had mentioned a sexy Bo Peep costume.Keep in mind it was under 50 degrees here on Halloween, and he
couldn’t wear anything but underwear under that bobsledding costume.See kids?Gambling is wrong hahaha

I apologize for the delay in my blog update but I had a bet
of my own that I needed to win.Which I
did.In a video game.Every one of my friends had been informed
that I would be elsewhere (Azeroth) until I’d sped through all available
content for the one game I can’t seem to permanently kick, and every single one
of my friends called me, concerned that I’d died while playing because they
didn’t see or hear from me after the night it came out lol.But I was fantastic: my husband rearranged
the living room and had me playing on the TV, supplied me with takeout and
drinks and even took care of the kids so that I could kick some ass without
interruption.I was so immersed in
smashing orcs and hunting rares that when I was as finished as I could get with
the game for the time being, I felt incredibly refreshed.Not everyone can enjoy a vacation at home,
but I did and I even reconnected with my old team, not that I don’t have all of
their contact info anyway, just felt nice to do something with them online
again since most of them live across the country or in a different country
altogether.

Now I’m getting ready for Thanksgiving, making myself and my
family look decent, getting a dish together to bring to my mother’s house, and
baking a pie for my mother in law the racist bigot – a woman who has admitted
multiple times with enthusiasm that she wouldn’t want to see me if I don’t
bring her an apple pie.Does she ask
about her grandchildren?No.Does she ask about her SON?Nope.But, she asks about the pie, so I’m making a pie with the closest thing
to love that I can, which happens to be apathy.

I put a little work down on Playing with Tigers 3 and
Swordmaster Dasan 3, but need to sort out a few things that would mess up
either of the timelines before I can finish them.Sadly, these books are not a top priority for me – The total
earnings of all four of the published books don’t even cover a week of very
light groceries and I truly want to rewrite them in the near future
anyway.

Cat & the Crow will have a print edition hopefully
available by Christmas, we will see how that goes.

The Disassembled Life of Duncan Cole –

Despite the many statements and suggestions that I should
split the book into two books, I will not be splitting Duncan at all.Ever.It’s two books that need to be read together in order to get the full
story, two books packaged together because I wanted to cut the cost to the
reader and ensure a better overall reading experience.There should be no mistake about the fact
that this was intentional on my part, because I was considering the readers who
have a tighter budget and the readers who would’ve reached the end of part one
and been unsatisfied.I should mention
that if I had split the books, that the first chapter of part 2 would’ve been
tacked on the end of part 1.You would
meet Calvin, see what’s happened to Dan, realize that everything is falling
apart for Duncan, and been told to wait a few months for the next one.Some people would be okay with that, but I’m
not one of them.I’ve refused to
purchase sequels before on the grounds that the first book did not tell a
complete storyline and I will not be charged twice for one product – I won’t
charge twice for one either.;)

As for future works regarding Duncan, I play around with
ideas for promotional short stories every now and then, but I’ve been too busy
working on the second Duncan book and a Calvin book to follow that, and they’ve
been too fun to move away from for very long.

I am off to go and murder my kitchen, cook some breakfast
and jump back in Spannerdire – I left a house on fire in there and really
should get around to dealing with that.

Anybody looking to contact me can find me at goodreads.com
and as always I thank each and every reader who took the time out of their day
to review any of my books – Love the book or hate it, that’s the best feedback
in the world and I appreciate it.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Once upon a time I would spend the entire year planning for
Halloween, spend months on my costume, write a short story for the season and
spend the 31st running through smalltown New England with a literal
herd of younger cousins, toilet papering a certain tree in my hometown as
tradition states and ending the night with a candy binge that threatened to
give me premature diabetes.

Sadly as time went by, stress intruded on my favorite night
of the year.

When my oldest son was six we couldn’t go out because he
took with the flu, so we also missed our family’s Halloween party.Unperturbed, I put on a marathon of
goosebumps and purchased about $30 of candy, and we spent the night cuddled in
a blanket fort in our former apartment, wearing our costumes even if nobody
could see it.

The next year, my grandmother passed away in mid
October.My family is extremely large –
the woman had twelve children, they all had children and every single surviving
one of them lived in the same town.Halloween was a big deal to her, but it wasn’t the same going to her
house and not seeing her in the corner of her living room.There was no homemade candy, there was no
mountain of toilet paper set aside or directions on how to avoid the police
while toilet papering the tree at the top of her street.My son had never dealt with death before she
died, but I don’t think it had hit him just how different it would be without
her until then.On our rounds from my
grandmother’s house through all of my aunts and uncles homes that littered the
town, I quite eagerly accepted what looked like a coffee, but that hot cup was
in fact warm vodka.Trying to preserve
my love for the season, I clicked my Styrofoam cup with my older cousin, took a
deep breath and carried on until we made it to the last aunt’s house.This was probably the best year out of the
last 4.

At the beginning of October 2012, my son’s school insisted
that they couldn’t manage him.We
thought at the time that he only had ADHD, but he clearly had some anxiety and
depression.Not wanting my son to be
depressed at eight years old, I caved under the pressure of doctors and
teachers and allowed him to be put on an antidepressant.He attempted to kill himself at school a few
weeks later.In order to safely wean
him off of the drug that he was reacting poorly to, he was committed to a
mental health facility that didn’t allow parental visits aside from one hour of
the day and wouldn’t allow children under 5 on the ward at all. They discovered his Aspergers while he was there, so I suppose they helped, but I hardly saw him because I had a 2 month old
boy at the time and nobody could watch him for me.That October was spent with my 2 month old at home, worried for
my son and unable to do anything about it except have his father stop there on
his way home and share some dinner with him.I wrote to him on Halloween, sat down with my infant, turned on a horror
movie and started to hate October a lot more.

Last year upped the ante.My uncle fell on the ice while playing hockey and while being checked
for a concussion, they discovered an AVM.He was born with a large knot of arteries in his brain, so many that it
looked like a baseball on the images they showed us.They were surprised that he’d survived to 50 because typically
AVM’s rupture at a young age and once they do, you die.Fifteen hours of surgery left him safe from
that, with only mild seizures.But,
it’s hereditary.A few of my mother’s
siblings were checked and had minor issues, but you already know what’s coming,
don’t you?My mother did not have an
AVM (thank you powers that be) but she did have 2 aneurisms that were ready to
burst and very likely kill her, and one was in a place where they wouldn’t be
able to go in through a vein.They
needed to operate on her.I was living
with my mother at the time while saving for the house I’m sitting in, but one
of my aunts decided to come to the house to specifically tell me that the best
thing for my mother would be if I wasn’t part of her life.

On October 15th of last year,
four things happened.After twelve
hours of surgery, my mother made it okay and unscathed aside from 51 staples
across her face and enough swelling that she insisted she looked like chunk
from the goonies.My family decided
that I didn’t look upset enough for them and started to make more statements
about how I was the world’s worst daughter, which led to them physically
circling me, in a hospital, blocking my husband, father and brother from coming
to my side, and screaming at me like the pack of wolves that they are.Security was called to get them off of me,
and I was upset enough that I didn’t even get to see my mother because they
stood in front of her door and stared me down.Remember, there are TEN of them that are still alive, plus spouses.My best friend of the last 21 years had her
gorgeous baby boy, buthad some
complications and I couldn’t be there for her because I was dealing with the
brain stuff.And my brother in law (one
of them), who is 12 and severely autistic was physically assaulted at his
school by his own teacher’s aid.Can I
get a, “WTF?!”

I was wondering why my anxiety was getting so bad as soon as
the calendar said October, but after about 2 seconds of reflection, I remember
now.So far this month I only have
poison oak over most of my body, and we’ve been shocked to see a man walk out
of my garage after evidently sleeping there, although he was very polite when I
explained that he couldn’t stay.It’s
day 3, and all things considered, that’s really not that bad compared to the
last few years lol.

So, October has become a very hard month for me, but this
year is going to be different.Because I fucking said so. I am
going to get my trick-or-treat on, although I’m undecided if I will TP that
goddamn tree or not.My family infests
that area and about a year ago I realized that they’re all toxic for me and my
own little family to be around.

This year, my friend is celebrating her son’s first birthday
with a Halloween themed party, I have both of my healthy and happy kids with me
(they’re being ninjas and have been practice assassinating my husband all
week), for ONCE my husband has Halloween off and is willing to let me dress him
how I want so he’s going to be Marvelous Chester, and I will be seeing Miss
Nicole Castle for the second time.And
thankfully she’ll be staying for Halloween because we can use my kids to get free candy.We’re going to watch Thankskilling because
she is the turkey overlord, eat far too much sugar and irritate my husband to
the best of our ability, and when it’s all said and done and she has to go
home, it will be November, which is a fine month in my opinion.

Still trying to figure out what we should go as, though – costume
suggestions welcome

If I can get my feet under myself again, then I might write
a short story for the season, so wish me luck!

Saturday, July 26, 2014

So, a few years back, I was poking around in the self pub
business.I had just published Playing
with Tigers 2 and Swordmaster Dasan, and during one of smashwords promotions
figured I should try and help out others in the same boat as me, picked up a
few books and got to reading.There
were a few that were pretty awesome, which should’ve been satisfying.Then I went to one author’s blog before I
reviewed and saw a comment that they’d made, calling the self pubs of the
erotica genre, “Pornmongers.”

Look at that word.Now, when you look at Pornmongers, does that make you feel that it is a
term of respect, or mockery and possibly disgust?I went with the latter, and reading down this emotional vomit
session that this person had where they ranted that at least they weren’t one
of us, I thought that they might be in that lovely part of the publishing
process where they get frustrated.There are a ton of them, I had been through quite a few of those already,
and taking a deep breath, left the politest comment that I was physically
capable of.

I said that I enjoyed their short story.I said that I would still be buying the
other ones (at the time two other shorts were for sale from this author which I
did purchase.With money.) and that they
had done an amazing job.Then I
recommended that they might want to refrain from talking ill about the
pornmongerers, since they don’t always read the same as they write.Somebody might take offense, that I was
shocked to see it up on the blog that linked to their author profile.I told her that people might not want to
purchase her books based on that.

What I did not say was that it was fucking stupid to do
that.But it is, lol.This is a mistake that too many authors
make, and lately there’s been a lot of authors making mistakes.We’re people, I was trying to help her not
make that mistake.

And I thought I had helped.

I am currently laying on my couch pretending to be dead when
people talk to me, laid up with kidney issues, a stomach bug and the worst time
of the month that I’ve had in about ten years.While clicking randomly on things, I remembered this and went to check
to see if she ever replied, because I never got a notification that she had.

OH SHE DID.Here is
part of it.I removed the stuff that
pertains to her work, because lol done with her and not sharing my fanbase with
her.

“It took me a while to figure out what the hell you were on
about”<- not a good way to address
a reader, just FYI.

“I love porn and whores and pornmongering and
whoremongering.” <- sounds like it.Why not describe your love for kids by describing them as uterus
regurgitations or possibly parasitic disease sacks.There are a hundred ways to describe an erotica writer.This was nooot a wise one.

“Also, look, I tried not to say this. I really
did. But you can’t really threaten someone with “People might not buy
your stuff” when I’ve opted in for my work to be free all month.”<- should’ve tried waaaay harder not to
say it because guess what?You just
did.It wasn’t a threat.

There was more that can’t be put up here because it pertains
to her work, which I’m not promoting.Know what?I will not respond to
her on her blog, or link to it because I don’t want to give her the attention,
but I will rant my rotten little mouth off here.

I have a ten year old with ADHD and Aspergers syndrome.Raising him, I’ve had to adapt to understand
every side of everything, to take the numerous and amazingly insulting things
that he says and go, “Now, what does he mean by that.Probably this, he’s just (insert emotion here) and it’s coming
out all wonky again.”I had a friend
ask if a pair of jeans made her look fat when he was 6.His uninvited response was that they looked
fine before she put them on, that he though she was making THEM look fat.<- explain that one to a friend lol.I am an unbelievably understanding
person.That blog post?I must’ve read it a hundred times to make
sure that I was right to be insulted because I go through about 10 anger checks
to make sure that my feelings are the appropriate response.If I didn’t, then my kid’s life would be
miserable.Which means that if I was
insulted, then that shit was meant to be fucking insulting.

She removed the post she was referring to, there’s no way to
be sure.But I remember being upset
after reading it, and not just a little.

It did cost money at the time that I wrote that comment, and
that was intended to be a friendly suggestion from one self pub to
another.I bought the other ones.They were great.

Here’s the thing, an author is a person just like their
readers.It’s something that everyone
says “Obviously!” when they hear that, but really think about it for a
second.Spend a year taking an idea and
laboring over it, find a cover artist and struggle to get a cover that suits
your book, find proofreaders for content and editing, pay an editor if you can
afford it knowing that you won’t make that money back, read it, read it, read
it, read it until you don’t even know what you’re reading anymore, write the
blurb, send the cover back because it’s disastrously wrong, pay for it again,
read it again, more proofreaders, read it again, the blurb isn’t good enough so
rewrite it, read it, take out six chapters because they weren’t good enough and
write them again, now reread the whole thing again to make sure it still works,
back to proofreaders, read it….<-
repeat that for awhile.

It can get overwhelming.Being an author isn’t for everyone.But, under no circumstances does that make it okay to refer to any other
writer with anything but respect.Because all of that shit you’ve gone through that’s making you think the
world has climbed up on your shoulders to stomp you down?They’ve gone through it too.

She didn’t know that I was an author when I posted that
comment.Which brings me to my next
little twitching idea – she thought I was a reader.That’s even worse, lol.When addressing a reader, treat it like every pair of eyes in the world
is on you, judging you on your behavior.Because they are.Is that
hard?Yeah.I’ve had comments made that have hurt.Often.Go and see how
many people I’ve offended.I’ll
wait.One.That’s all.I had a
friend who wanted to read Swordmaster Dasan even though I knew that she wasn’t
into that sort of story.I gave it to
her anyway and she told me that it made her sick and that I was
disgusting.Which hurt.So, in a moment of bitter pouting, I wrote
in a blog post that anybody who could stomach the first one would probably like
the second, and that offended a reader.I will never make that mistake again, because that was poorly worded of
me and every time that I look at the review where they mention that, I feel
awful.I made the mistake of thinking
that nobody was looking because I was hurt, but as an author, mom and wife, I
should’ve known better, and this author should’ve too.

So I wish her luck.Her work is fantastic.Hopefully, nobody who likes it will go to her blog lol

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Well, Duncan has been out for a month, so it's time for me to get my ass in gear on a few other projects. The way that I work, due to rampant ADHD, is a bit odd. Whenever I get an idea, I will write a portion of it out, which oddly ends up always being about 30 pages. Honestly, one of them is 29 pages and one is 31, the rest all end at 30 because apparently that's all the energy I'll commit to a story that I don't know if I want to finish. Then I see if it's worth pursuing. The Cat & the Crow started as one of these story starters, although the story changed dramatically when I wrote it out. Duncan was also one of the short stories that I was debating, and the instant that I wrote the part with the bed where Duncan gets all awkward, I laughed and went, "That's a book."

The only problem is that I happen to have about twenty of these little story beginnings that I wrote over the last year, figuring that I'd get to them when I was done with Duncan. Well, I'm done with Duncan (for now) and can't decide which new project to work on next. I have requests for a few of them, but haha, that's a problem too because having requests for three different stories means that I'd be spreading myself too thin and I would accomplish nothing. Not to mention, I plan on putting work down on the long-awaited Playing with Tigers 3 and Swordmaster Dasan 3 & 4 while I write on something new, which means that I can really only pick one at a time.

Then there's the Duncan issue. I wrote so much for the book that I was going to package it as two books, had originally planned to package it as three books (the draft of the third is with me, safely unseen by human eyes other than my own) but I decided to put the first two together because the second one takes place a few hours after the first, and together they have such a lovely snowball effect. You start with someone whose day includes nothing more than being grumpy and smoking, and by the end of the book... haha. Yeah. The problem is that putting two books together makes for one very long book, and not everyone likes a long book. So I am undecided on when I'll get to it. I keep circling back around to it, we'll see.

So, I am working on wolf shifters this morning, some hardcore bondage this afternoon and putting humpty dumpty back together this evening (that's Keel from PWT. I broke the poor guy haha, need some duct tape).

Friday, June 20, 2014

The Disassembled Life of Duncan Cole will be free in the kindle store from Sunday 6/22 - Thursday 6/26. If you haven't had the chance to check it out, this will be the last time that it is available at no cost for the foreseeable future so please take advantage of the opportunity and enjoy!

And a HUGE thanks to everyone who has taken the time to leave a review - I appreciate it more than you could possibly know.